Primoz Roglic has claimed the pink jersey in the Giro d’Italia in an impressive way. The Team Jumbo-Visma rider completed the eight kilometres long time trial in 12:54. He was nineteen seconds faster than number two Simon Yates.

For Roglic, the victory is his eighth win of the season. For Team Jumbo-Visma it’s the fourteenth victory. Earlier this year, he already won the Tour de Romandie, the UAE Tour and the Tirreno-Adriatico. In Romandie, he also won the individual time trial, while he and the team won the team time trial in the UAE Tour.

“I am super happy. It’s an amazing feeling that I’ve won and that I’ll start in the pink jersey tomorrow”, Roglic said. The time trial in Bologna finished on San Luca, a climb of two kilometres with an average of ten percent. “I didn’t have any tactics. I started fast and tried to keep my pace on the climb. This is a great start, but I’m aware that the happiest man on earth will be the man who’ll wear the jersey in Verona. There’s a long way to go, but we started very well. I’m looking forward to the upcoming three weeks.”

According to Head of Performance Mathieu Heijboer, everything came together today. “Primoz has developed himself really quickly in our team. This is the first time we started with him as the absolute leader. This time trial suited him very well. It’s great it all worked out.”

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Roglic rode his race with a special handle bar. Heijboer: “Also, the development of the time trial suit from AGU, the bike and all the work in the wind tunnel of TU Eindhoven have contributed to this result. Besides that, we’ve developed a new handle bar together with Jumbo, FSA and Bianchi. This handle bar was custom made for Primoz. It fits his time trial position, it’s lighter and more aerodynamic and it’s much more comfortable than the handle bar he used before. We’re very grateful to our partners who have invested a lot in this for our team.”

Laurens De Plus also rode a meritorious time trial. He finished eighth.